More suggestions followed, all of them conjuring up the frenetic atmosphere of the shop as Easter drew near. But a mountain of tasks intervened, and the shop never got around to christening the Harveyesque chocolate bunny, priced at $145.

Ms. Valente and members of her staff navigated a surge of orders for items like chocolate-dipped Peeps on sticks, among the store’s best-selling Easter treats, and life-size chocolate hens perched on nests of chocolate eggs.

Easter is the second-busiest holiday season at Chocolations — Christmas is the first — and this year the rush was especially intense. Last fall, the “Today” show hosts Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb featured the shop on their “Favorite Things” segment after a colleague brought a box of the handmade truffles to the studio.

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Treats for Easter, the store’s second-busiest season.CreditAndrew Sullivan for The New York Times

Word of the shop’s treasures has also been spread by regulars like Eileen Piccolo, who stopped by recently to buy an assortment of chocolate bark to serve for dessert after Easter dinner.

The store has a number of items that normally wouldn’t be found in a chocolate store, like handmade candles, truffle oil and truffle honey, made by local artisans. And a light lunch is available, on Saturdays only in the colder months and daily beginning in mid-April.

Ms. Valente, who holds a degree in environmental law from Pace University in White Plains, has worked in the real estate and computer industries. But she said she grew tired of working for other people.

She had also long held a fascination with chocolate. When she was 6 or 7 and growing up in Eastchester, her mother gave her an Easter basket filled with molded confections. “I remember being amazed that food could look so pretty,” she said. When her own two children, both in their 30s now, were small, she started making chocolate as a hobby.

“People would say, ‘Wow, you’re good at this,’ when I would make this or that for them,” she said. “And it became sort of a cottage industry.”

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Maria Valente, the owner, also stocks the shop with homemade cupcakes and novelties like truffle honey; chocolate bark.CreditAndrew Sullivan for The New York Times

A cottage, though, is not a castle, even when the industry grows successful enough to inhabit a 1,600-square-foot store, as Chocolations does. Ms. Valente is acutely aware of that.

As a retailer, “you can’t survive on chocolate,” she said. “If we tried to, we’d go out of business once the slow season starts.”

During warmer months, the demand for chocolate dips. “I learned early on that you have to be willing to adapt and make changes if you want to stay afloat,” Ms. Valente said. That explains the candles, noncandy truffle products, Saturday lunch menu, house-made cupcakes, hand-scooped ice cream from Longford’s in Port Chester, and a selection of novelty products, including greeting cards, dispersed throughout the store.

But of course, the chocolate is the main draw. Ms. Valente calls herself “kind of a purist” when it comes to ingredients.

“I discourage people from buying white chocolate, even though it’s more expensive, because it’s not real chocolate,” she said. “And I’m known as the Strawberry Nazi: I won’t let you buy chocolate-dipped strawberries unless you’re going to eat them the same day.”

She continues to experiment with shapes and forms, though. She and her staff make special-order, life-size high-fashion shoes, for example ($50 each), that are popular for birthday parties and bridal showers. And “I’ve done every animal and sport imaginable,” she said.

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The shop moved to its current location in 2010.CreditAndrew Sullivan for The New York Times

The only chocolate shapes Ms. Valente won’t do are X-rated ones. “I have young girls working for me,” she said.

And also, often, young children afoot. When Chocolations moved to its current location in 2010 from a space roughly a quarter of the size a few blocks away, it started hosting in-store birthday parties.

Ms. Piccolo’s granddaughter celebrated her sixth birthday there with a cluster of friends; the girls made chocolate bars and decorated cupcakes. “They loved it,” Ms. Piccolo said. (Parties, for groups of up to 30, start at $425.) The store sometimes provides an element of glamour to the occasions — Ms. Sepkowski and other employees dress up as Disney princesses. In-store parties have become such a hit that the basement is being renovated as a party room.

Sugar-buzzed youths are not the only ones who will benefit once the party room is completed this month. The space will accommodate local groups like the charity knitting circle that gathers at Chocolations every other Saturday to make hats, scarves and sweaters for My Sister’s Place, a women’s shelter in White Plains.

“We like people in the community to think of this as a space for them,” said Ms. Valente, who began her lunch business last summer after a few hungry members of a book group asked for something savory.

“It’s kind of a fun thing to move in different directions, like lunch,” she said just before returning to a customer who wanted ideas for customizing chocolate bars for a 40th-birthday party. “I just wish I had more time to focus.”

HAUTE CUISINE High-fashion shoes made of chocolate are available for $50 apiece. ODDEST ORDER The shop once created 150 chocolate likenesses of a man’s face for a birthday.

ON THE MENU Lunch is served only on Saturdays during the colder months, but an outdoor cafe serving lunch daily will be open on April 12. Light fare like quiches, salads, wraps and sandwiches are offered.